"What are you going to tell me?" I asked.
"How prosaic you are, Rose."
"Well, you never like me to make a fuss."
"That is true, and no doubt you will act sensibly in the present
emergency. It is nice to be pitied, and affection is of value, but
sense, oh yes, unquestionably common sense comes first of all." I could
not help gazing at Jack with wide-open round eyes while he was speaking.
"You never in your whole life asked me to show feeling or affection," I
managed to gasp out. "What do you mean by regretting it now? Your head
must be wandering."
"Well, well, Rose, perhaps it is. It certainly aches badly enough to
account for any vagaries in my speech. But now to business--or rather
to the kernel of the matter. Rose, I am going to be very ill, _very_
dangerously ill--do you understand?"
"I hope I don't, Jack. You have a bad headache, which will soon get
better."
"I repeat, I am going to be dangerously ill. I have taken fever. I
know the symptoms, for I have watched them in another."
"In another? Whom do you mean? When have you been with a
fever-stricken patient?"
"You will start when you hear my next words. I have been nursing my
wife through fever."
"Jack--your wife! Are you married? Oh, Jack!"
"Well, go on, Rosamund. Get over your astonishment. Say, `Oh Jack!' as
often as you like, only believe in the fact without my having to repeat
it to you. I am married. My wife has scarlet fever; I have nursed her
till I could hold up no longer, and now I have taken it myself."
I looked full into my brother's face. It was flushed now, and his brown
eyes were bright. He was a big fellow, and he looked absolutely
handsome as he sat up in bed with the fever gleam shining through his
eyes, and a certain sad droop about his still boyish mouth. I own that
I never found Jack so interesting before. He had behaved very badly, of
course, in marrying any one secretly, but he was the hero of a romance.
He had feeling and affection. I quite loved him. I bent forward and
kissed him on his cheek.
"Go on," I said. "You want me to help you. Tell me all the story as
quickly as you can."
"But you will shrink from me when you know all."
"No, I promise that I won't. Now do go on."
"I believe I must tell you quickly, for this pain rages and rages, and I
can scarcely collect my thoughts. Now then, Rosamund, these are the
bare facts. Six months ago I fell in love with Hetty. Her other name
doesn't matter, and who she was doesn't matter. I used to meet her in
the mornings when she walked to a school where she was teaching. We
were married and I took her to some lodgings in Putney."
"But you had no money."
"Well, I had scarcely any. I used to make an odd pound now and then by
bringing home work to copy, and Hetty did not lose her situation as
teacher. She still went to the school, and she told no one of her
marriage. I meant to break it to you all when I began to get my salary,
for you know my time of apprenticeship will expire at Christmas. Things
wouldn't have turned out so badly, for Hetty has the simplest tastes,
poor little darling, if she had not somehow or other got this horrible
scarlet fever. She was so afraid I'd take her to the hospital; but not
I!--the landlady and I nursed her between us."
"But, Jack, where did you get the money?" The heavy flush got deeper on
my brother's brow. He turned his head away, and his manner became
almost gruff.
"That's the awkward part," he growled. "I--I borrowed the money."
"From whom?"
"Chillingfleet."
"Mr Chillingfleet? He's the head of your firm, isn't he?"
"Yes, yes. I went into his room one day. His private drawer was open;
I took four five-pound notes. That was last Monday. He won't miss them
until next Monday--the day he makes up his accounts. I thought Hetty
was dying, and the notes stared me in the face, and I--I _borrowed_
them. He has tens of thousands of pounds, and I--I borrowed twenty."
"Jack--Jack--you stole them!"